In 1991 I was involved in a project of Art in a small village of Alberndorf in Lower Austria. I had to find a solution for wall-painting on bricks of clay. It was to be a part of the ecological architecture. This was the beginning of a completely new technique by totally different way of painting. I decided to use the same material as the wall itself: raw clay. It took some months to find a new mode of working with pure clay and water to achieve this. Finally, a new form of expression was found. The clay-painting-fresco.
Before, I had learnt how to paint outside and inside walls of buildings. I had to adjust to individual expectations and conditions. The clay-bricks of Alberndorf in Lower Austria were a real challenge. No local artist had any idea how to paint a permanent painting on clay. I was invited to work on the strategy to fit this ecological project. I used this situation for a radical innovation in a very sophisticated field of mural painting. This is how my clay-fresco was born. Finally, it required a lot of persuasive power to put it into practice.
My innovation of clay painting was given some working titles in different languages: “earth-painting, loam-painting, Lehmmalerei, malowanie gliną”. But I never was lucky with this denominations. I decided to create a personal name of my painting-technique as an integral part for my art, protected by copy-right: CLAYINTONE © Wolfgang Hofer